Category Archives: Sea & Ships

Commander Salvatore Todaro, beloved for his humanity by his crew and even by the enemy, was also known as the Gentleman of the seas or the Don Quijote of the seas.

Born in 1908, attended the Naval Academy from 1923 till 1927. In 1940 he was the commander of submarine Manara first and later of submarine Cappellini that was driven out of the Mediterranean Sea through the Gibraltar strait and operated in the Atlantic Ocean from Betasom, the Italian base in Bordeaux.

He becomes famous all over the world because on October 15th, 1940 he sank the Kabalo, a Belgian trading vessel operating under British flag but, on his own risk, he rescued the 26 crew members towing the lifeboat four days long and later keeping them on the board till Azores. Despite the official reprimand of Admiral Dönitz, commander of the joint submarine operation, he sank British vessel Shakespeare and again he rescued again the wrecked crew.

At the end of 1941 he was able to reach Bordeaux despite the heavy damages due to the British attacks: the submarine remained blocked for repairs several months and he moved to the Decima MAS, the Italian Navy Special Forces, organizing all the operations on Black Seas and the Sevastopol block.

In 1942 his new challenge was organize a similar strategy along the Libyan and Egyptian coasts with coordinated attacks from seas with fast boats starting from fishing boats.

On December 14th, 1942, coming back from a mission directed to Bona, the fishing boat Cefalo was attacked by a British Spitfire. Salvatore Todaro was hit by shrapnel to the head and died instantly: he was 34 years old. His memory was honored with the Gold Medal in addition to the previous 3 Silver medals, 2 Bronze and 2 Gernan iron crosses.

After 70 years a ceremony held yesterday in Livorno keeps his memory alive.

On April 10th, 2010 Lady Lazer_one gave the Second Officer of the Italian Submarine S526 Salvatore Todaro as a present one of her watercolor and since that day it will be hosted inside the submarine sailing across the seven seas and even under the sea-level.

Roma, named after two previous ones and the city of Rome, was the third Littorio-class battleship of Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina). BB Roma was commissioned into the Regia Marina on 14 June 1942, she was severely damaged on June 14th ,1943 from bomber raids on La Spezia. After repairs in Genoa Roma was deployed on August 13th as the flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini in a large battle group. She sunk on September 9th, 1943 while the force was in the Strait of Bonifacio routing to Malta following Italy’s armistice with the Allies. Only on last June 17th 2012 she was found after years of search. Here below her profile drawn by Enrr.

In the Gulf of Asinara was finally identified a portion of the wreck of the Battleship Roma located about 1000 meters deep and about 16 miles off the coast of Sardinia. The first and exclusive pictures of the wreck were taken from Engineer GuidoGay, founder and owner of company Gaymarine, which since several years leads experiments of the innovative equipment for underwater exploration designed and built by him. With the help of the sophisticated underwater robot Pluto Palla, and other exclusive instruments placed on board the catamaran Daedalus owned by the same engineer, the site where the wreck of the battleship Roma was identified and visited.

The staff of the (Italian) Navy, invited aboard the Daedalus by Mr. Guido Gay, our countryman, has unequivocally verified the consistency of images, taken first on 17 giugno2012 and then again on June 28, 2012, of AA guns installed on the battleship Roma.

After 69 years it is possible to assign the correct position to what the (Italian) Navy considers one of the most important shrines of the sea: the battleship Roma was sunk on September 9, 1943 by a German plane and 1393 sailors died, together the commander of the naval battle forces of the (Italian) Royal Navy, Admiral Carlo Bergamini. Only 622 men survived.

The vessel that became the Japanese icebreaker Sōya was originally ordered from the Matsuo shipyard Koyagi Island by the Soviet Union. She was launched from the shipyard February 1938 as Volochaevetz but she was never handed over due to political tensions between Japan and Soviet Union.

Completed as an ice-breaking cargo freighter she was renamed Chiryō Maru until Nov. 1939 when she was requisitioned by IJN and she got the name Soya with assigned duties as auxiliary ammunition ship/survey vessel.

On the second trip, in 1958, she rescued the explorers from the first expedition who had become stranded at the Syowa research station. Unfortunately they had to leave the expedition’s dogs behind. On Soya’s return a year later, two of the dogs, Taro and Jiro were found alive. This event inspired the Disney’s movie “Eight Below”. A larger helideck was added in 1959.